I would never say that the Nokia is a match for a full res 40Mpix MF or even fullformat D800.What I did is first sharpen 2 steps (e.g. Nik) downsample the Nokia to about 50-60% and use these resulting images and finetune them with PS CS6.I also use fairly dark exposures normaly -1/2 stop to keep the highlights from clipping.

And voila - the results work pretty well......... as good that I would say this matches my 5D MK2. Maybe not for the DR but with a little helpfrom a second (or more)HDR shot(s) there´s not much I wouldn´t dare to do with it.And all of the shots I took were handheld, lowest Iso setting and not especially worked on for longer than some seconds when shooting it.Actually it is astonishing simple to get really decent stuff with a little care to the N808.

That's because they don't properly focus the camera/lens over at dpreview. Just move the rectangle to the center of the image where the needlepoint shows in front of a cross. Every camera pretty much has different depth of field showing there. Don't quite understand how one is supposed to compare the images there...

If you compare two systems with the same pixel resolution and both working at Nyquist, won't both systems end up resolving the same detail no matter the format?

I think that simple metrics don't really work, especially if you are trying to get a "winner." I think our perception of an image is far more subtle and far more important than quantifiable results from an image data set. I hear folks saying that the benefit to large formats is the narrow depth of field--that is the defining quality. But is that really true? Lenses were slower and most folks shooting them stopped down. So while you can make a technical arguments that that is the benefit of large formats, that is not how they were/are used. So what makes larger formats so attractive? The answer I think is much more complex. DoF is not the benefit to larger sensor/film size.

As far as the DPreview images, personally I like them. They take photographer skill out of the equation and just put an example of a system response. The interpretation is a little more complex as there are some variables--I remember an RX-1 discussion over the DPreview images, it is amazing how many folks forgot the the RX-1 has a fixed focal length lens even after complaining about it. You need to do a little work with the DPreview images and they can be revealing. A skilled photographer can get better results, but then how do you take the photographer out of equation so you can evaluate the camera?

I hear folks saying that the benefit to large formats is the narrow depth of field--that is the defining quality. But is that really true? Lenses were slower and most folks shooting them stopped down. So while you can make a technical arguments that that is the benefit of large formats, that is not how they were/are used. So what makes larger formats so attractive? The answer I think is much more complex. DoF is not the benefit to larger sensor/film size.

Very good point. Formats larger than 35mm film were used almost all the time simply because they were much better quality. Being obsessed with shallow depth of field and the 'cinematic look' you get from large sensor video cameras is a bit of a modern obsession/trend. Ironically you look at most films[movies] from last century and funnily enough they rarely have a 'cinematic look' to them.

If you compare two systems with the same pixel resolution and both working at Nyquist, won't both systems end up resolving the same detail no matter the format?

The cutoff for the sensor is known -up to a point (Bayer effects) - but not for the system as a whole with the lens, the debayering and the in-camera processing; add to that the S/N and DR limitations from too small pixels ...and then as a photographer you really want to know about the rendering of texture, the falloff in the shadows, the NR, the edge look, skin oversharpening, blooming, flare effects from lights in the scene, how foreheads and nosetips burn out, and yes, the bokeh. In a phone camera or a compact many/all of these are baked into the Jpeg.

While the marketing guys have been brainwashing the consumer for the last ten years into the belief that megapixels are all that counts, the cellphone industry has been sponsoring fourier-based measurements of low-contrast slanted edge targets which should reduce everything to a single number (MTF-50); IMHO these are useful for engineering work, but in the end not as informative as photographic tests, but then I am not really qualified to judge

With the high resolution of just about everything out there resolution is really not the issue.There are few display situations where you are going to see huge resolution.

To my eyes the real difference is in dynamic range. Highlights not blowing out and nice blacks... as well as the rest in between.

This is especially the case for available light photography where mother nature sets up yourlighting ratios.

There is a lot of tit and tat regarding formats and the worthiness of the latest FF 24x36 sensors.While MP counts have gone up etc etc for me the most significant improvements have been in the dynamic range.

Edmund,I was just at an Imatest training last week, thanks to Norman Koren, and they have introduced a new 'dead leaves' test chart to measure other things that you mentioned like texture for example. Interestingly, I was the only one in the room doing 'high end' work. Everyone else was working for companies making small sensor cameras for tablets and cell phones, or bar code scanners and things like that. It seemed mostly they were interested in using Imatest in production environments to cull out the defective units as opposed to a development environment. Still I came away thinking that most of the energy is going into the small cameras at the moment. Eric

Norman is a friend of mine, a great guy; we regularly chat about stuff. His Imatest software is an industry reference, and readers of this forum who are interested in measurement can download the time-limited version. I went and took his course a couple of months ago because some customers of mine want to do SFR based image evaluation, and Norman's Imatest is one of the three big vendors here, the others being Image Engineering in Germany, and DxO in France, of course. It was precisely as you say, re the clients, at least those who were talking. However I believe that most camera designers employ similar tools nowadays to validate their prototypes.

Norman was showing me the dead leaves stuff about a month ago; dead leaves texture test patterns have been floating around before now His contribution, if I understand rightly is to generate a test pattern which has a 1/f power spectrum. In my opinion this means that the image is self-similar and a fractal in the sense of Mandelbrot, but of course I know little about such things. Although would I agree with Norman and with Dietmar (Image Engineering) that such an image is an improvement over slanted edge targets, I am not convinced that dead leaves are a good simile of textures; I have seen other fractal techniques which probably capture the human perception of texture more closely eg. Barnsley/Hutchinson IFS systems.

Edmund,I was just at an Imatest training last week, thanks to Norman Koren, and they have introduced a new 'dead leaves' test chart to measure other things that you mentioned like texture for example. Interestingly, I was the only one in the room doing 'high end' work. Everyone else was working for companies making small sensor cameras for tablets and cell phones, or bar code scanners and things like that. It seemed mostly they were interested in using Imatest in production environments to cull out the defective units as opposed to a development environment. Still I came away thinking that most of the energy is going into the small cameras at the moment. Eric

Not a criticism of you, nor of anyone else interested in these 'scientific' procedures, but don't you think, yourself, that this stuff actually gets in the way of shooting pictures? isn't it all just another knot in the rope that binds our minds - another subtle piece of self-inflicted inhibition?

Personally, I'm absolutely happy to leave all of this field to those making the bits that I use whenever I use them. That certainly reflects a definite lack of curiosity about some aspects of photographic reality, but as a snapper, I realise that it isn't sweet little old me that will design or manufacture a single camera or optic, and whatever I may feel about what's available, nobody will give a cuss: what makers want to make they will make, regardless of my opinions. Or probably those of anyone else here.

Not a criticism of you, nor of anyone else interested in these 'scientific' procedures, but don't you think, yourself, that this stuff actually gets in the way of shooting pictures? isn't it all just another knot in the rope that binds our minds - another subtle piece of self-inflicted inhibition?

Personally, I'm absolutely happy to leave all of this field to those making the bits that I use whenever I use them. That certainly reflects a definite lack of curiosity about some aspects of photographic reality, but as a snapper, I realise that it isn't sweet little old me that will design or manufacture a single camera or optic, and whatever I may feel about what's available, nobody will give a cuss: what makers want to make they will make, regardless of my opinions. Or probably those of anyone else here.

I don't see a contradiction. Some of us are interested in theory, some in making picture and some of are interested in both.

In general, knowledge used to be regarded as something positive in our society, ignorance less so, why would photography be different?Best regardsErik

Simply because in photography it pays to concentrate on the bits a photographer should be able to do.

I never knew how to make Kodachrome nor even how to process it, but I did know how to expose it quite successfully. As I wrote in my post, I have no beef with anyone who wants both sides of the deal, good for them; I just think it can be a dangerous distraction, is all. It can inhibit what you'll try. Too much knowledge can be as dangerous as too little.

Not a criticism of you, nor of anyone else interested in these 'scientific' procedures, but don't you think, yourself, that this stuff actually gets in the way of shooting pictures? isn't it all just another knot in the rope that binds our minds - another subtle piece of self-inflicted inhibition?

Personally, I'm absolutely happy to leave all of this field to those making the bits that I use whenever I use them. That certainly reflects a definite lack of curiosity about some aspects of photographic reality, but as a snapper, I realise that it isn't sweet little old me that will design or manufacture a single camera or optic, and whatever I may feel about what's available, nobody will give a cuss: what makers want to make they will make, regardless of my opinions. Or probably those of anyone else here.

I've always walked both sides starting with college at UC Berkeley where I doubled in both Physics and Fine Art. I don't see these things as mutually exclusive at all. The developments in art have more or less paralleled those in science throughout history. Great book by Leonard Shlain, called Art and Physics details this.

From what I have observed, the most important talent in being a good photographer is business and communication... is that art or science or neither?

I've always walked both sides starting with college at UC Berkeley where I doubled in both Physics and Fine Art. I don't see these things as mutually exclusive at all. The developments in art have more or less paralleled those in science throughout history. Great book by Leonard Shlain, called Art and Physics details this.

From what I have observed, the most important talent in being a good photographer is business and communication... is that art or science or neither?

It's also been my own observation, somewhat unfortunately. When I first hung out the shingle I had already spent maybe six years as a full-time employed photographer, cutting my teeth in an industrial photo-unit (invaluable) and then in commercial outfits for a brief time, where I learned who the local clients were likely to be.

I'd built up a nice little portfolio (nobody knew to call them 'books' then) of this'n'that, shots for some nice girls from the Glasgow drama college and I thought that was all I needed to take off into the wide blue yonder and soar with the eagles.

I had enough put by to last us for six months. We found some work quite soon, and I thought we were on the right track. Little did I realise that at the end of six months I’d be pretty much broke in cash terms, but was owed quite a reasonable sum. Irony, I thought, but years later I discovered irony had nothing to do with it: it was the way the advertising world worked. They gave you the job, paid you – sometimes – at the end of three months, but the local colour labs gave you a month’s credit. Period. Do the maths. One client, a knitwear manufacturer, didn’t want trannies, he wanted colour prints. I was delighted to get an order for six hundred quid’s worth (quite cool back in the late 60s) but I didn’t know he’d take over a year to pay me, bit by bit. That was 600 notes out of my pocket at the end of the first month. No wonder a lot of snappers have to fold.

I also discovered that quality often had bugger all to do with success. I went to see one art director in a big agency and he looked at the portfolio, said it was better than the stuff from the guy he was already using (which I already knew, and that was why I was there in his office), but that he still wouldn’t change. I asked why, to be told the other guy was much cheaper. And that’s a big ad agency I’m speaking about…

So yes, you are right, and to answer the little hook in the tail, I don’t think that’s either art or science: it’s street smarts, and like talent, you have it or you don’t. I never did; I survived despite that massive little flaw. I realised later, after it was pretty much all over, that success doesn’t really depend on talent, how well you do your job, but on whether you are smarter than those who seek to hire you or, better, are born into the right world. Literally. You also have to be able to deliver, but how what you deliver is received depends on many things beyond yourself.

Would I do it again? Being myself, I suppose I would, but were I able to change my early circumstances, maybe/probably not.

Back to the original subject. In the past, I sold several articles to a national, mass-circulation mag illustrated with images from my Nikon Coolpix 900, a 3 MP camera whose performance pales in the light of current cellphone cameras. Content is king.

"At recent photo shoot of Civil War reinactors, Kuster primarily used his DSLR but also took some shots with his iPhone just for kicks. At a photo conference, he showed an audience the DSLR/iPhone photos side by side and they overwhelmingly preferred the iPhone images".

Obviously content is king and what goes on in front of a camera is more important that what goes on inside the camera.

That doesn't mean that a cell phone shot (regardless of megapixels) is the same process as working with a professional camera. Sure there are a trillion people snapping around with a cell phone producing multiple trillions of images a day so I guess they should get some images that look good but that's not professional, that's luck.

Professional is having the ability to shoot something that's repeatable or at least on command.

Also I don't even know why this is being mentioned in this thread. First we got beat to death by Nikon talk, now it's cell phones.

Doesn't anyone here want to use a real camera?

I shot these two images between sets in Moscow, between ad sessions with a Leica.

They're not technically perfect and shot in moments, . . . . and . . . . I probably could have shot them with a cell phone, but why? Cell phones make crappy cameras regardless of the electronics and pixel peeping and sharpening and hdring and . . .

The best part of photography is taking the restriction of a camera and making that work in your favor.

The Leica I use has a lot of limitations but it seems to make a different look, a different image that I like.

I like working cameras and find pleasure in that, even under the extreme pressure we work in today.

I enjoy cameras that have restrictions.

You know we talk about this stuff like as long as a device shows mega detail, goes to a billion iso, requires no light, focuses by itself, doesn't take any thought other than frame and go plunk, then it's a good camera and that's nothing like the way any good photo I've seen is produced.

Good and camera are more than just what shows up on dp review or dxo site with charts, markings and tight crops of a toy mouse.

Also I don't even know why this is being mentioned in this thread. First we got beat to death by Nikon talk, now it's cell phones.

Come to think of it, this forum probably attracts people who like to tinker with cameras... because this is also what technical/view/MF cameras are about. In a world where cameras become more and more automatised, some people still like device where there is some technical interaction between the photographer and the device. Whether it is a view camera with movements for perspective correction or an iPhone mounted on a panorama head and perspective correction in software, the approach is similar.

My point is if anyone spends the cash for a camera that costs more than a Point and Shoot casio, they probably have aspirations of shooting something better than a cell phone photo, or capturing that one weird news event that ends up on cops.

I assume they want to improve their talents and end result.

I'm not against a cell phone that shoots well, I just find it non interesting. Just because I have a device in my pocket that "can" take a photo doesn't mean that's the process of making a photograph.